Tools

Big News: Twitter Adds Your Promoted Accounts to Search Results

Twitter is built around real-time conversations, and one of the best ways for people to discover what’s happening is through search. In addition to helping members engage with relevant topics, Twitter search also gives marketers an opportunity to connect with consumers.

Building on its existing integration with Promoted Tweets, the company announced it will now help businesses attract new followers by adding Promoted Accounts to search results. Moving forward, Twitter will automatically select relevant search queries for displaying the ad unit based on your targeting choices.

If you’re unfamiliar with Promoted Accounts, the ad unit is one of the quickest ways to build an active community of followers for your business on Twitter. You can target your ad to reach more people who are just like your current followers, or you can target customers by gender, in a specific geography, or with specific interests.

According to an August 2013 study, 72 percent of consumers reported that they’re more likely to make a purchase from a brand that they follow or engage with on Twitter. Additionally, 34 percent of those surveyed said they interacted with a brand after seeing an ad with their Twitter handle advertised. So reaching more people on Twitter through Promoted Accounts is in your business’ best interest.

But don’t just take our word for it; here are three case studies that show how brands have found success with Twitter Promoted Accounts.

U.S. Chamber of Commerce

As the world’s largest business federation, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce regularly invests in television, radio, online, and print ads to get its message out to the public. However, it wanted to add more dynamic methods to its strategy to aid in communicating timely policy issues to influencers.

Through Promoted Accounts, @uschamber was able to build a follower base of influential supporters on Twitter by targeting members interested in issues like jobs, health care, free enterprise, and the economy. It also combined a Promoted Tweets campaign to help engage with those followers about policy issues.

As a result, Promoted Accounts helped @uschamber quickly and effectively reach an audience that could influence economic policy. Without the ad unit it would have taken the company about four years of organic growth to acquire the same number of followers it achieved in only three months.

Duane Reade

The drugstore chain wanted to grow its base of followers on twitter. The challenge: it needed to reach relevant local and national audiences while engaging consumers across a variety of lifestyle interests. As a solution, the company used Promoted Accounts with geo-targeting over a 12-month period to reach members in specific markets like New York, Boston, and San Francisco

With Twitter Ads, @DuaneReade “significantly” boosted its reach and engagement, becoming one of the fastest growing retailers on Twitter. The company increased followers by 6,709 percent with Promoted Accounts over one year with a low cost per engagement of $.20.

Nylabone

As a manufacturer of pet toys and supplies, Nylabone wanted to connect with dog lovers on Twitter to increase its brand awareness and product line. The company monitored trending topics to see what dog-related conversations were taking place on Twitter. Once it knew what consumers had to say about pet care, ownership, and dog breeds, @Nylabone used those topics to create interest keyword groups for its Promoted Accounts campaign.

To help attract new followers, the company really focused on sharing more visual content in its tweets and reinforced its position as a “leader in responsible animal care” by tweeting links to informative articles. As a result, @Nylabone increased their follower base from 1,700 to more than 20,000 — a gain of almost 1,200 percent. Additionally, by tweeting links to relevant articles from nylabone.com, Twitter became a top-three referrer to the company website.

As you can see, Promoted Accounts can be a very successful tool for brands on Twitter either on its own, or paired with other types of Twitter Ads. If you’re interested in using one of Twitter’s Promoted Products, contact your account representative for more information or visit ads.twitter.com.

Jennifer Beese: Jennifer Beese has worked as a community manager and social media strategist. When she’s not writing, you can find her studying anatomy and physiology—she literally has a skeleton in her closet—or under the stars with her telescope.